


My Baby's a Bardling and You're Gonna Be In Trouble (hey na, hey na)

by ursa_maritima



Series: Bards, man... [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 17:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17308505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ursa_maritima/pseuds/ursa_maritima
Summary: Vex was a little worried when they named Juniper (x5) de Rolo.  turns out she had good reason, just....not the one she'd planned for.





	My Baby's a Bardling and You're Gonna Be In Trouble (hey na, hey na)

**Author's Note:**

> these are just little snippets of things that came to mind when i was writing Another World. more a glorified character study, i guess, than an actual fic.

things the de Rolos really ought to have noticed earlier:

most infants, while loud and often crying, tend to not change pitch to harmonize with a howling dog.  
or a sibling.  
or a drunken grand high poobah de doink of all this and that.  
junebug does. with a vengeance.

that the mornings Juney woke up early with a strange, insistent kind of cry that rose in pitch as she held it coincided perfectly with the mornings the Whitestone Guard’s reveille player post was filled with their backup player on a substandard horn that was always juuust a little flat

that her siblings seemed unusually protective of her- to the point of arguing about whose fault the blue handprints in the solar were when Junebug had been caught literally blue-handed

the kazoo incident.  
don’t ask.  
no, really. _don’t ask._ the less said about the kazoo incident, the better.

as soon as she started talking (a bit before her second birthday), Cassandra discovered a pressing diplomatic concern in Emon and, when asked by a Percival (trying to hide how desperately he wanted her back to deal with the political side of governing Whitestone) or a Vex’ahlia (in dire need of having a snarky sparring partner after dealing with the economical side of governing Whitestone) when she would be returning, simply responded with ‘when Scanlan does,’ much to their confusion.

when Auntie KiKi came for her third birthday party, Keyleth spent a whole day shapechanging into different birds, whose calls Juniper learned to mimic unerringly fast. Because of this Gilmore spent a *very* confused week wondering how the hell a Shamal Bay fisherhawk was surviving a Whitestone winter until he caught a beleaguered ten-year old Oliver trying to talk Juniper down out of a tree before any adults noticed that the eight year old twins were being distractingly adorable- distractingly being the key word, as nobody noticed the youngest de Rolo perched in the tree wearing nothing but approximately a pint of glue and about three chickens’ worth of feathers.

but no. what happened was this:  
Junebug had been promised a walk out to the Sun Tree in time to greet Auntie Kiki.  
a visiting ‘merchant’s consortium’ from wildemount (smugglers, they were definitely smugglers, but not necessarily unuseful to have on friendly terms) was being sticklers for protocol and unnecessarily dragging out the afternoon’s meeting, thereby endangering Greeting Auntie Kiki.  
Juniper appeared at the doorway, tiny hands on tiny hips, and declared that the meeting was over because it was time to go Greet Auntie Kiki and she needed her parents to walk to the Sun Tree.  
the Wildemount crew laughed that nobody left a negotiation table until an agreement was made.  
“Junebug, since these people won’t agree to this charter despite having already agreed to each provision individually, Ollie will take you,” said Vex.  
“you can’t come unless they say yes?”  
“yes.”  
Juniper walked the rest of the way into the room, right up next to the flashiest colors in the thickest furs, and stared up at his smirking face.  
“so say yes,” she demanded. they locked eyes for a long moment, then the smirk turned into a full grin and he reached out to slap the table.  
“Ja, whatever, it’s good!”  
“what? agree like that? she spelled you.”  
“...a four year old?”  
“I’M FIVE.”  
“a five year old? spell me? i’ve been shrugging off charms since i was that age. impossible.” taking in his compatriots’ shocked faces, he rolled his eyes. “it is like the Lady said, we agreed to the pieces, we agree to the whole. too little sunlight this time of year, better to enjoy it out there! where’s the beer?”  
Juniper made it down to the sun tree to greet Auntie Kiki with minutes to spare.  
that, while it did cause an exchange of raised eyebrows and lifted shoulders between her parents, was not enough to make them send a plea for Scanlan.  
Taryon’s shocked expression when he found out their negotiation had lasted a mere 6 hours, however, combined with his sputtered explanation that the shortest negotiation on record was *twenty hours longer* and that they prided themselves on refusing to leave the table until someone had pissed themselves- that made all the earlier moments fall into place like the pieces of a trap as it sprung, and led to their casual (read: desperately clinging to a veneer of calm) request that Scanlan come be Bard-in-Residence for a while.

\---

at some point, far in the future, June heads up to visit - otherwise known as a library raid - Taryon. by the time she and her younger brother Killick make it up there, they’ve acquired a motley honor guard of two former brigands, a bemused ranger with their four hounds-in-training, and a ‘travelling scholar’ (who was totally going to reveal his treachery, any day now, for certain, they’d all feel the wrath of the Mountain Rat, one day. but not today, because the sun was glinting so beautifully in June’s hair and the air was so crisp and the song that had been stuck in his head all week was just too perfect for the scenery…) Taryon, recognizing the ‘travelling scholar’ as the ruthless highwayman from some posted bounties, asks him what the hell he’s doing. “i don’t know,” he says mournfully. “I crept up on their camp, June said ‘hey man, come share a little heat, it’s cold tonight,’ and i found myself sitting down and drinking soup and then Killick fixed the sticky places in my scabbard and made this ingenious hidden pocket in my cloak and it’s been two weeks and i haven’t killed or maimed anyone and i don’t know why, and what’s worse is...i don’t care...”  
the combination of Juniper, Taryon, and Killick proves to be too much charisma in one place for the Myriad’s comfort, and they offer a _significant_ concession to the Lord and Lady of Whitestone if they’d just please, for the love of grift, take their children back.

(Killick has Plans. he’s gonna be the background tinkerer (and bookie, let’s be real) to Juniper’s wandering tale-spinner. he’s got it all worked out...right up until the moment he first gets on the bow of a ship surrounded by nothing but blue as far as he can see; he looks at the sea and the sea looks back and says ‘welcome home’ - but that’s a different tale, mentioned here only because June watches this happen with a small half-smile and promises she’ll cover for him with their parents, since it’s patently obvious he’s not leaving. ...and then gets Pike to help her write a sappy, bawdy ballad full of references to seas and depths and anchors plunging into them because he’s still her brother, his name means Anchor, and therefore he can never know peace.)


End file.
